Saturday, 27 December 2008

This is one of the cakes I made for Christmas this year. I found this recipe in the Australian December 2008 edition of Better Homes and Garden. What a delightful cake! Another one of those cakes that turn out better after a day’s ‘resting’. So no matter what you do, don’t let temptation get you. Leave the cake to rest, in an airtight container for a day before cutting it. Of course, make sure that the cake is completely cool before you store it, or else it will ‘sweat’. Serve it as is or warm with butter. Would be lovely too, served with some coulis (click to see my recipe on STRAWBERRY COULIS – just change the strawberries to raspberries).

Take note that it is a very ‘heavy’ cake (as it does not have baking powder in it) but it does rise considerably. Make sure you use a 6 to 8 cup capacity tin to bake this cake. A fancy tin would look lovely.

Ingredients

Liberal amounts of melted butter for greasing your tin. No need to flour the tin.½ tsp bicarbonate of soda1 cup of cold water – I used the cold water setting on my tap (Note, we get very cold water in our taps in Canberra, even during summer. No such thing as a cold shower here – you’d freeze to death!)4 cups plain flour – make sure you tap the cup just once to ‘settle’ the flour and hence to give you the correct amounts. Any more taps and you will have too much flour.1 tsp cream of tartar250 g butter – softened (around 20 to 30 sec in the microwave for solid butter – you don’t want it runny, just soft)1 ½ cups caster sugar (use same principle as the flour – tap once to ‘settle’ the amounts)4 eggs – bring to room temperature if you have them refrigerated.300 g frozen raspberries, partially thawed (I brought them out of the freezer when I was ready to start making the cake)Icing sugar – to dust

Combine the bicarbonate and water in a jug. Set aside. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together in a bowl. Set aside.

Beat sugar and butter in an electric mixer until light and creamy. Note: about 6 mins on setting 5 using a Kenwood mixer. Add in the eggs, one at a time (I gave it 1 minute between each egg I added to the bowl and 2 mins after the last addition).

Remove the bowl from the mixer and using a metal spoon to stir, add in the flour and water mixture. Note: I added half the flour and water, mixed the batter gently (as you would to make muffins) and repeated the process with the second half of the flour and water.

Add in the raspberry, mix well and spoon into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 to 1 ¼ hours or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre. Note: it took exactly 1 hour 15 mins for the cake to cook.

Stand the cake, still in its tin, on a wire rack, for 15 mins before turning out to cool on the rack again. Put cake on a plate and dust with icing sugar (use a small sieve filled with icing sugar and gently cover the cake with it) before serving.